“Rising interest rates and increasing cost of new supply will help keep that supply down and will allow us to continue to increase rates on our existing residents,” says Neithercut.

A subset of multi-family, the lesser-watched student housing sector, could also benefit, specifically the largest, American Campus Communities (ACC). Since it has so little competition, it benefits from a cheaper cost of capital.

(Read More: Map: Tracking the US Real Estate Recovery)

“We actually have a very favorable comparison in terms of yields. The development transactions that we’re undertaking typically are 7 to 7.25 yield, a nice spread to multi-family, so we tend to have more cushion in that regard,” says Bill Bayless, CEO of American Campus.

For the overall REIT space, however, analysts are questioning whether this is a long term cyclical change tied to improving gross domestic product. If so, sectors with shorter-term leases, like multi-family, self-storage and health care may fare better than office or industrial, which have longer-term leases.

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100793087